Body by Pastrami
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Post Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes goes to work as a legal secretary for the public defender's office in Portland, Oregon. Rated for non-consensual veganism, Marxist Swear Jars, and descriptions of paperwork.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

This is set post-Civil War and discounts all subsequent canon. Also, I know the Met is no longer pay-what-you-wish, but my canon-divergence fantasies extend to real life.

Corrections are always welcome since I don't have a beta reader or the patience for proofreading.

As a final note, I have no idea if it's Hydra or Ashton Kutcher, so if anyone wants to make a suggestion, I might write another chapter.

* * *

"Huh."

"What?" asked Sam.

Tony waved a piece of paper. "Someone sent us a letter."

"So?"

Steve and Sam had spent the summer backpacking through Europe like a couple of gap year kids, but instead of searching for sex and the meaning of life, they were searching for one James Buchanan Barnes. Well, Steve might have also been searching for sex and the meaning of life. Sam honestly couldn't tell, and he didn't want to ask. Steve was in the service long before DADT got repealed, and he was barely holding his shit together without being forced to pull it out of the closet.

Steve had started to let himself go. After three months, he only looked like a Greek _demi_ god, and Sam had to stage an intervention. Steve had eventually agreed to let Tony move their search to the ether, as long as he was informed of the Winter Soldier's involvement in his parents death. Tony offered to help without demanding a tax break, award, or beer, which made Sam more than a little nervous.

Two more months came and went with no sign of the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, or anything in between.

"Well, first of all, no one sends letters anymore," said Tony. "Other than Huckleberry Finn here, of course. Is this from you, Huck?"

Steve winced and shook his head. He hadn't even been ribbing Tony, which was how Sam knew he was really depressed.

"What's second of all?" asked Bruce.

"There's no return address."

"So?"

"The last time someone sent us a letter with no return address, it was Loki."

"Oh, yeah," said Sam.

"Maybe you should wait to…" Bruce got five words out before Tony ripped open the envelope. "...listen to anything I say."

The envelope contained a single flash drive, Kingston Data Traveler, 32 GB, no label. Tony plugged it into a port on the wall, and Sam was secretly satisfied to see that even tech genius billionaire Tony Stark had to try three times.

The wall became a screen, and Tony started typing on a holographic keyboard.

"It's a video. Think it's another Evil Villain Monologue?" Without waiting for an answer, he added, "If so, it's a long monologue. Eight hours."

"Could still be Loki, said Thor.

The video opened on an empty lobby. It was a time capsule, both in the sense that it appeared stuck in the 1970s and also that Sam wanted to launch it into space. The waiting room was full of mismatched chairs. The reception desk had a half-dead ficus. The walls were orange, but whether that was from age or aged interior design, Sam couldn't tell. On the wall were plastic letters spelling the words...

"Public Defender?" Even Steve looked slightly interested. "Is that like us?"

"What, you didn't have public defenders in the 30s?" asked Sam.

Steve shrugged. "If we did, I didn't know about it."

He sighed. "Of course you didn't. Public defenders are pro bono lawyers, appointed by a judge when someone gets charged with a crime but can't afford to hire a private attorney."

"Free attorneys?" Tony gasped. "You mean all this time I could have been spending my money on coke and hookers?"

"How can they afford to work for free? Steve asked, a little unsure, like he was afraid they would think he was fucking with them too.

"Public defenders are non-profits, paid for by the state, but not maintained by them so there's no conflict of interest with the prosecutor's office."

"That sounds fair," said Steve.

"It really ain't," said Sam. "There's been a push for pay parity across the country. Public defenders are paid much less than district attorneys-"

"To defend criminals," said Tony.

"And people accused of crimes they didn't commit," Sam said pointedly, because the Avengers had all been charged with crimes at some point in their lives. "And brothers disproportionately charged with possession and other misdemeanor charges that would never stick to a white guy-"

"This public defender is in Portland, Oregon, so that's probably half their caseload," Tony interrupted, still typing.

"They also help people with addictions get treatment, people with mental health issues get therapy, the homeless get housing, veterans get their benefits-"

"Okay, I get it. We should all become public defenders. That doesn't explain why someone sent us a video of-"

"Bucky!

"What?

Steve was sitting up straight, staring at the screen. "Bucky!"

Barnes stepped off the elevator and paused to type something into his phone.

"I don't understand," said Steve. "If he showed up in the system, we should have seen it, right?"

"If he's using a different name-"

"We still should have seen it," said Tony.

"I don't think he's a client," said Sam. "Look at the clock. It's a public defender. They're not going to have Stark Tower security-"

"Avenger's Tower," Tony corrected.

"But I doubt the elevators work before eight without a fob, or code, or something."

"You think he's breaking in?" Steve's brow furrowed, and Sam did not want to be the one responsible for giving Captain America wrinkles.

"I think he's clocking in."

Barnes put away his phone, and pushed through the door to the left of the dead ficus. He was absent from the screen for three minutes before reappearing sans coat and sitting behind the reception desk.

"Fueling up the jet for a trip to Portland," said Tony.

"You might want to hold off on that," said Sam.

"What?" Steve sounded a little winded, but that was probably just because he'd stopped breathing when Barnes was out of sight. 'Why?"

"Ten minutes ago, we didn't know if he was crazy, or comatose, or dead, or back with Hydra. Now we know he's well enough to get up, get coffee, get a job-"

They watched Bucky greet a coworker and log into a computer at reception.

"Get better computer skills than Steve," said Tony.

"Get better social skills than Tony," said Steve, and Sam never thought he would be so happy to hear them bicker.

"If he hasn't come home yet, it's because-"

"He doesn't want to," Steve finished for him.

"Yet," San finished for _him_. "Maybe he doesn't remember."

"I thought Steven was the first person he remembered," said Thor.

"Recognition isn't the same thing," said Nat.

"You push him now, you might push him away," said Sam.

"He might not have a choice," said Nat. "Someone _was_ filming him."

"Oh, god." Steve actually managed to go whiter, which Sam hadn't thought was possible. "What if it's Hydra, and they kill him at the end, and they just sent me this to taunt me, and-"

"Jarvis, does the monster at the end of this book get ganked? Tony asked, with less tact that Nat's smallest tactical knife.

"At the end of this video, Sergeant Barnes leaves the office," said Jarvis.

"No news is good news," Clint said cheerfully.

"With Hydra, no news means they've been infiltrating your workplace and torturing your best friend for seventy years," Steve said, not at all cheerfully.

"If I may?" Jarvis interjected smoothly. "The Human Resources department of the public defender has Sergeant Barnes' address on file as 1312 SW 10th Avenue, Apartment 3030 of the Saint James Apartments, where I am currently detecting a body with a prosthetic left arm."

"Oh, yeah," Sam squinted at the screen. "The arthritis gloves are a good idea."

"I thought that was just because he's old," Tony said in his most innocent voice, which was not innocent at all. "So the Saint James apartments, huh? That's modest."

"It is the only low-income housing near the office," said Jarvis.

"They really don't make much," said Sam. "By the way, It's both creepy and impressive that Jarvis can do all that without your permission."

Tony shrugged. "Jarvis has better judgment than I do."

"I guess you really meant it when you said you should have seen him if he ended up in the system," said Bruce.

"I should have seen him if he ended up in a Starbucks."

"He probably can't afford Starbucks," said Sam. "What is that coffee? Dunkin' Donuts? Jesus. I thought the feeding tube was sad."

"Okay," Natasha said in her gentlest voice, which was surprisingly gentle. "We'll watch the video, figure out who filmed it and whether or not we need to dickpunch Hydra or Ashton Kutcher."

"Who?"

"Don't dickpunch Ashton Kutcher, Steve," said Sam.

"Seriously?" said Tony. "You won't check out Star Wars, but watching the Winter Soldier do paperwork for eight hours is your idea of quality entertainment?"

"Don't call him that," said Steve. "And I watched _Star Wars_."

It hit eight o'clock in the video. The phone lit up, and Barnes started taking calls. Clints lips moved silently, before he said, "Wrong number. They're trying to reach a car wash."

"Eight hours," Tony grumbled. "I won't even watch forty-five minutes of Undercover Boss."

"That's just because they wouldn't let you be on it," said Pepper.

"It's not my fault that I'm famous!"

"Look, you don't have to stay," said Steve.

Tony got up and left. Steve went through the seven stages of grief in the time it took for Tony to reach the door before putting on his Captain America Face™. He did this without once looking away from the screen.

Sam seriously considered attaching a "Big Truck Little Penis" bumper sticker to the ass of the Iron Man suit. (He was saving it for a special occasion).

He'd been trying to teach the Avengers compassion, which they were surprisingly short on, for superheroes. They could save children and kittens in trees, but give them an emotionally vulnerable coworker, and they were worse than the comments section of YouTube.

Bucky took another call.

"Um, they want their lawyer to know that they're moving to California because it's Crackhead Season in Portland."

"Crackheads have a season?" asked Sam, wondering if it was like mosquito season or like deer season.

Tony came through the door to the kitchen carrying a jar of Pumpkin Pie Spice. "What do you want on your popcorn, Cap?"

Steve was so moved, he actually tore his gaze away from Bucky for three whole seconds. Sam timed him.

"Thank you, Tony. Uh, I like butter?"

"Of course you do, Paula Deen. Are you sure? I'm making pumpkin spice popcorn."

"White girl," Sam muttered.

"Hey, I can't help it if Uggs are comfy."

Bucky took another call.

"You also can't handle anything spicier than pumpkin spice," said Sam, even though he and Rhoades had been working on the Avengers' spice tolerance. Steve could now eat Doritos. Not even the Cool Ranch kind. Sam had high fived him (and then wiped off his hands).

"Just butter," said Steve.

Tony rolled his eyes. He didn't return to the kitchen. He must have ordered Dum-E to make the popcorn again. The little robot had gone through a few upgrades, and now only had butterfingers when actual butter was involved. A crash came from the kitchen.

"None of you have to stay," Steve added, a little self-consciously.

"I could use a movie day," said Clint, and Natasha performed the most controlled couch flop Sam had ever seen.

They watched Barnes disappear and reappear with a Diet Coke.

"Diet?" said Tony. "What, is the Winter Soldier watching his figure?"

Steve sighed. "Don't call him that."

"He probably still can't process simple carbohydrates," said Sam without thinking.

"What?"

"Steve-"

" _What_ , Sam?"

It was Sam's turn to sigh. "Look, I asked a couple of docs at the VA, hypothetically- because: reasons- what would happen if someone was on a feeding tube for more than ten years."

Steve winced, because it had been a lot more than ten years. "What did they say?"

"They might never come off it.

"This is what you meant when you said he could be dead in a ditch."

"I did not say 'in a ditch' Steven Grant Rogers. Look, he might still have some trouble with carbs, meat and dairy, but I figured the serum would help."

"Hydra made him a gluten-free vegan?" asked Tony. "I know they tortured him, but that's just cruel."

"Take a breathe, Steve," said Sam. "You don't have asthma anymore so there's no excuse for this shit."

"Maybe I could send him some vegan protein powder, or-"

"Steve, if you were running from people who forefed you some kind of vegan protein powder for seventy years and someone sent you vegan protein powder, what would you do?"

Steve looked hangdog, in the sense that he looked like a dog who was about to be hanged. "I would flip my shit."

Sam nodded. "You would flip your shit."

A woman entered the lobby, and Barnes greeted her twice before apparently realizing she was having a conversation with one of the chairs. If Clint's lip-reading was correct, that conversation went something like:

"Stop torturing me, physically. I was a member of the French resistance. Yeah, we had our own tactical weapons, because I work for all people in all dimensions. Yeah, I brought the dimensions myself. Stop messing with my body from head to toe, illegals."

"At least he's doing better than that." Bruce gestured to the Chair Whisperer.

Barnes seemed to realize the same thing because he began having a panic attack.

They watched him fight to control his breathing, while continuing to answer phones in what had to be an increasingly unsteady voice. Sam knew how much Steve hated to feel useless, an anathema that went back to his days as an asthmatic, scoliosis-ridden dependent during the Great Depression, but Sam didn't really understand how useless Steve was feeling until he whispered, "Bucky used to help me breathe."

Sam kept quiet, and for once the other Avengers did too. It would have felt like a victory, but he knew it was more about curiosity than compassion.

Steve kept whispering, even though the video didn't have any sounds to drown out.

"When I had asthma. The doctors said it would help if I could regulate my breathes to someone else's, you know? Bucky would put my hand on his chest. He helped me breathe. He helped me- He helped- He always helped me, when I was sick, or starving, or starting fights." Steve had unconsciously matched his breathes to Bucky's, even though his hand was three thousand miles from Bucky's chest. That, or he was having a panic attack of his own. "I got- I finally got strong enough to help him and I couldn't- I couldn't- He saved me so many times, and I couldn't save him."

"Just because you're Captain America doesn't mean you can save everyone," said Sam.

"Not everyone. Just him. What's the point of being Captain America if I can't save him?"

"Uh, I think all the children and kitten in trees, Steve. Besides, look at the screen. He's still here."

"Most of him," said Tony, and no one asked whether that was an arm joke or a mind joke, because the answer was: Yes.

Sam glared, and Tony actually looked contrite, which Sam had not thought was in his repertoire. The goatee had something to do with it.

Well, it wasn't exactly a victory, but it was at least a truce.

After a couple of minutes, a coworker came to relieve Barnes for his break. He knocked on a door behind the reception desk. When no one answered, he pulled it open and stepped inside.

"Jarvis, zoom in on that sign." Natasha was squinting, and even that looked good on her, for shit's sake.

A paper sign was taped to the door. In bright pink Comic Sans, it said:

Lactation and Feelings Room!

"I never thought I would say this," said Tony, "but I hope it's feelings."

Sam glared harder.

"What? We don't know what Hydra did to him."

"Yes, we do," said Sam. "We've seen the file."

Sam had heard some fucked up POW stories at the VA, but that file had given him some _Inception_ style meta-nightmares.

"They had him for seventy years, and the file was not that thick," said Tony.

Steve looked like he was going to start crying, which was mental image that Sam did not need, right up there with Barnes lactating- and now they were combined, thank you very fucking much, Tony.

Sam tried to remember where he'd hidden "Big Truck Little Penis" bumper sticker. Underwear drawer? No, he hadn't wanted the words "Little Penis" anywhere near his own, even by association. Under his bed? No. Too many pairs of underwear got lost down there.

He'd hidden it in a common area so he couldn't be blamed if someone did find it.

Shit.

Under the popcorn tub.

Tony gave him the most evil grin Sam had ever seen, and yeah, the goatee had everything to do with it.

Sam was going to have to check his wings very carefully.

Barnes emerged from the Lactation and Feelings Room!, his eyes a little pink around the edges. He returned to reception and closed the digital switchboard to check his email.

Tony snorted.

His desktop background was a painting of Socrates preparing for his execution. He was surrounded by weeping figures, but he himself was unafraid, one hand reaching for the cup of poison, with the other raised to illustrate some final point.

At the bottom, someone had added in large capital letters: SUCK A DICK, YOUR HONOR.

"The Death of Socrates!" said Steve. "That was Bucky's favorite painting! Walter Pach sold it to the Met in '31. I was always dragging Bucky there when he had a day off. He liked Jacques Louis David best. All those heroes."

"I thought you little matchstick girls were too poor to afford a whole crust of bread, let alone museum tickets," said Tony.

Steve smirked. "The Met's free, Tony."

"No, it's not. It costs, like, twenty-five bucks. I mean, I'm sure it was less in the 1931, but-"

"That's a suggested donation." He sounded smug, and Sam wondered how bad an influence Barnes was going to be if he already had this effect on Steve. When they first met, Sam had been continually amazed by how someone that _big_ could be such a little shit. He got the feeling he hadn't seen nothing yet.

Tony frowned. "Jarvis-"

"Captain Rogers is correct." Even _Jarvis_ sounded smug.

"You're a billionaire, Tony," Pepper soothed.

"I know, but-"

"You've donate hundreds of thousands to the Met."

"I _know_ ," said Tony, "but it's the principle of the thing."

Steve _cackled_.

Bucky took another call.

"This one is something about a guy wearing a Darth Vader mask, riding a unicycle, and... playing a bagpipe that shoots flames," said Clint. "Bucky's telling him that he doesn't need to call the police unless the flames get any higher."

"Anyone else see the Captain America bobblehead?" asked Bruce.

"Sure," said Tony, "but that doesn't necessarily mean he remembers anything. He could have just collected all six Cheerios QR codes."

"What's a QR code?" asked Steve.

"It's a machine-readable optical matrix barcode."

"It's like a box top," said Sam.

"Why didn't you just say that?"

"Look," said Tony. "He also has a Queen Amidala bobblehead, and I know he hasn't met her. Wow. The Winter Soldier is a fuckin' _nerd_."

Steve sighed. "Don't call him that. Oh, and-"

Tony put a hundred dollars in the Swear Jar (they each contributed what they were able; Captain America was surprisingly Marxist when it came to swear jars).

That right there was why Sam only swore in his goddamn inner monologue.

"What? It's the computer age. Nerds are in. We're still in, right?" Tony put a bill in the jar Dum-E held out.

Sam would have called him on the _Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ quote, except that would mean admitting he recognized it.

Steve's face softened. "Yeah. Everyone thought I was the nerd, because I was small, but Bucky was the one who liked going to your dad's expos. I was the one who liked punching people in alleys."

"Dad's expos, huh?"

"We went to one the night before Bucky shipped out. I think that's just because he's bad at goodbyes."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, he's not so good at hellos either."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note

I figured out who it was.

* * *

Chapter Two

For the rest of the week, they received a flash drive each morning of the previous workday at the public defender's office. Tony determined it was security camera footage, but when he ordered Jarvis to perform a threat analysis on the public defender's security system, no anomalies were detected. There were no fingerprints on the flash drive or envelope, and the address was printed, not handwritten. The only evidence was the videos themselves.

On Tuesday, Barnes had to help talk down a client who was convinced his lawyer had been kidnapped by the District Attorney.

On Wednesday, they found out Barnes was a legal secretary. He had only been covering for the receptionists while they battled an outbreak of flu. The first receptionist came back, still coughing, and made Barnes wear a surgical mask so he wouldn't get sick. Clint could no longer read his lips, and the only part of his face visible were his eyes, which looked close to tears. Even Tony felt sorry for him. (He didn't say anything, but he did try to buy The Death of Socrates from the Met. Sam eventually talked him down to a print and a nice frame. It took five hours.)

On Thursday, he attended an all-staff meeting where he was awarded a Starbucks gift card for being a "Stealth Hero." After the meeting, he had to spend twenty minutes in the Lactation and Feelings Room.

On Friday, Barnes took his Captain America bobblehead back to his desk. The rest of the receptionists had returned, bringing him a new bobblehead in thanks. It was Iron Man. He placed it carefully next to Captain America, but twenty minutes later, he turned it to face the wall.

He spent the day working on a rush transcription for a case going to trial the following week. It was a police interview of a guy who had stabbed someone in the eye for calling him gay.

"I wish we lived in a world where that wasn't an insult," said Steve. After a moment, he added, "Also maybe a world where people didn't stab each other in the eye."

The rest of the Avengers drifted in and out of the common room, but Steve stayed, camped out on the couch like it was a foxhole. On Thursday, Dum-E hosed him down with the sprayer from the wet bar.

Steve said, "Thanks."

Then, "Can you bring me a granola bar?"

A "granola bar" was a euphemism for Plumpy'Nut, a peanut-based famine food the Avengers had distributed after a run-in with Crossbones in Lagos. Steve had stress-eaten one on the plane and found he didn't need another meal for almost two hours. Since then, Plumpy'Nut had become his go-to food source when he was too depressed to eat. Sam was growing seriously concerned about Captain America's colon.

(Sam would never be concerned enough to _ask_ about Captain America's colon.)

The weekend brought a break from the videos, so Steve watched Google Earth instead, until Tony told him that most of the satellite imagery was at least a year old.

"I would offer you the thermal readings Jarvis took of the Saint James Apartments, but honestly, I'm still not sure how he got that. Also, you need a real shower. You smell like Circus Peanuts and Smirnoff. That's my signature scent."

Steve sighed so much that Natasha had to weigh down the file she was reading with the nearest heavy object, which happened to be Clint.

On Monday, there was a bomb threat at the public defender's office.


	3. Chapter 3

Bomb threats were a regular thing at the public defender's office. Employees generally viewed a bomb threat as a snow day that could happen in June. There were standard evacuation procedures, court setovers, and paid leave.

The Avengers didn't know any of this, and they didn't stay long enough to find out. The jet was still fueled up for a trip to Portland. They landed on a private strip at the PDX airport and took the Max train to the city center. No one seemed surprised to see the Avengers in full gear on the Max train, but that was probably because they were used to people wearing Darth Vader masks, riding unicycles, and playing bagpipes that shot flames.

By the time the Avengers arrive at the public defender's office, the building had been cleared, the eye-stabbing case had been setover, and everyone was gone. They stood outside the building for a few minutes, listening to the Chair Whisperer's conversation with a city bench.

"Japan is aware of a squiggly issue. What is Osama Bin Laden's name? I had a bullet in my cheek. It was strategically removed, by strategic surgeons. The French Foreign Legion called. I was chosen. I live in the spirit world. I would have actually preferred chanting."

Tony opened his comms to reply, because he was Tony, but then the Chair Whisperer looked at him. "I did extract semen. Yeah."

He closed his comms, probably so he wouldn't have to hear Sam's laughter.

The door of the nearest Starbucks opened and one James Buchanan Barnes emerged.

Steve dropped his shield. It made a sound so loud or perhaps simply so unmistakable that Barnes looked up. They stared at each other for another few minutes. Then Steve lurched forward. He wrapped those ridiculous biceps around Barnes, ignoring common sense, personal boundaries, and the advice that Sam had spent the entire jet ride giving him, for fuck's sake, Steven.

Barnes dropped his coffee, which was a shame, since it was clearly a splurge.

He raised his right arm and hugged Steve back.

Sam was not crying. It rained a lot in Portland, okay?


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: I know some of my chapters are short, so I will try to post a couple at once.

I also know Russian Tea is only in the afternoon, but if anyone could bully Vitaly Paley into making the Winter Soldier hazelnut meringue kievski at six in the evening, it's Natasha Romanova.

* * *

Barnes had to wait until his notice was up, and New York actually went two weeks without getting attacked by mutant armadillos, so the Avengers took a vacation, not in Monaco (Tony), Rio de Janeiro (Bruce), or Budapest (Clint until Natasha put a hand over his mouth, which he licked), but in the Hipster Capital of America: Portland, Oregon. They fit in surprisingly well, between Bruce's yoga pants, Steve's flannels, and Thor's beard.

While Barnes trained the new Legal Secretary, they explored the city, taking turns to choose a destination. They visited record stores (Steve), farmer's markets (Bruce), and doughnut shops with items like the "Old Dirty Bastard" and "Cock-n-Balls" (guess.)

Every evening, they picked Barnes up from the public defender's office took him out for dinner. Fortunately, Portland had a lot of vegan and gluten-free options.

They went to Boke Bowl for its peanut butter and jelly dumplings, Headwaters for its Russian tea, Departure for its rooftop lounge, Kenny & Zuke's Deli for its egg noodle kugel and a "Body by Pastrami" T-shirt for Steve, Escape from New York Pizza for its surprisingly good pie, and Le Pigeon for the chef specialty until Tony found out that was pigeon crudo, which was forty-dollar raw pigeon, which was "what homeless people ate _for free_ ," but which Barnes said wasn't that bad "if you were really hungry."

They didn't eat at Le Pigeon. They walked down the street to the Doug Fir Lounge where Tony ordered everyone "Fir Burgers" just because of the name. Afterwards, they went shopping for vintage light fixtures at Hippo Hardware, the decor at the Doug Fir Lounge having finally convinced Tony that mid-century design had its merits. Steve had beamed until Tony bought a disco ball for the Tower.

Steve had still beamed, because he didn't seem to have any other setting now that Barnes was back, which was how Sam ended up buying a new pair of Ray-Bans in the wettest city in America. (Sam new it wasn't really the wettest city in America, but he couldn't find its actual ranking mostly because the Bureau of Environmental Service data management system was called HYDRA and his search set off multiple security alerts.)

Tony insisted on paying for everyone's meal, which was normal for him, but he also made sure Barnes had good sightlines and ordered him desserts without asking.

At first, Sam hadn't been sure how they would get along. When Steve introduced Barnes to the team, he had approached Tony and said something in a voice so low, it was inaudible to anyone without superpowers. Sam only knew it was, "Do what you have to do, but not in front of Steve," because of all the hollering Steve had done.

Tony had said, "What I need is for you to teach Steve how to use a computer, because I'm going to pitch a fit if he asks me how to fax a pizza one more time. Steve, your boyfriend is so much better at the future than you are."

Steve had sighed (but he hadn't said, "Don't call him that").

In the end, Barnes got along with Clint (who understood the mind control), Bruce (who understood having no control), Nat (who understood the brainwashing), Tony (who didn't actually understand the torture but pretended he did since the Ten Rings had forced him to participate in the interrogation equivalent of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge), Thor (who understood not understanding anything), and Steve (who understood _him_ ).

It was no goddamn wonder his office had a Lactation and Feelings Room. After two weeks, the Avengers wanted to adopt him.

Barnes had nightmares every night and most days. (He and Steve were nappers; Tony made a lot of old-people jokes, but he also voluntarily turned down Black Sabbath which was a thing that had never happened before). It took them a while to notice that Barnes had nightmares, because Hydra used to punish him for screaming in his sleep.

Napping gave him panic attacks. So did alarm clocks, sirens, small talk, the Max train, trying new things, eye contact with strangers, eye contact, saying "you too" when the waiter told him to enjoy his meal, saying anything, eating in public, being in public, and Mondays.

His confusion over the simplest things seemed a lot less funny than it had with Steve. Barnes had never driven a car, popped bubblewrap, or pretended a tube of wrapping paper was a lightsaber. He had never Googled himself (probably for the best), tried to diagnose himself on WebMD (definitely for the best), lost a remote (at least not a _TV_ remote), started a flame war (they had to explain the difference between a flame war and a firefight), or pulled back the shower curtain when he went to the bathroom just to make sure there were no serial killers hiding behind it (because he was usually the serial killer hiding behind it).

By the end of that game of Never Have I Ever, even Nat had something in her eye.

Two weeks later, they picked up some Dirty Old Bastards for Pepper, took the jet out of long-term parking, and brought one James Buchanan Barnes home.

They threw an impromptu welcome home party at the Avengers Tower. Thor tried to teach them an Asgardian dance that involved a lot of thigh-slapping (not always his own). Clint decimated everyone at Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Tony gave Barnes more presents than he had ever received in his life, all wrapped up in paper with a repeating print of Iron Man ironing the team's costumes, and then started a lightsaber battle with the tubes of wrapping paper.

Barnes sat in the corner, looking at everything with a slightly stunned expression on his face.

Steve sat in the corner, looking at Barnes with a slightly stunned expression on his face.

The next day, Jarvis confessed.


	5. Chapter 5

"But I checked the public defender's security system."

"Yes, sir," said Jarvis. "By asking me."

"Well, fuck a duck," said Tony.

"Tony," said Steve, and Tony put a hundred dollars in the Swear Jar.

Sam raised his hand because: VA. "Question. How'd you send a flash drive?"

"Dum-E," Jarvis said simply. Well, not simply, because he was an artificial intelligence complex enough to go behind his Sys Admin's back and recruit other robots to his cause, which was apparently making a This is Your Life about supersoldiers, but… most things sounded simple when you were used to Tony.

"Sweet tits of Buddha," said Clint. "Did you call in a bomb threat?"

"Tweeted, actually," said Jarvis. "A dummy account is more difficult to trace than a phone call, and I found 140 characters was more than sufficient."

"You just sent the bomb emoji, didn't you?"

"Don't be silly," said Jarvis. "I sent the bomb and the skull."

Tony facepalmed, which looked like it hurt since he'd been running some tests on the gloves when Jarvis called the team meeting.

The one question that no one asked was why Jarvis had done it.

When Tony learned about the Winter Soldier's role in the death of his parents, he hadn't handled it well, and for him, handling something well usually involved alcohol and sound speed barriers. His signature scent had gone from Circus Peanuts and Smirnoff to pretty much just Smirnoff. He continued to rib Steve, but his jokes were all Mark Twain references, which was how Sam knew he was really depressed.

Then he'd offered to help them find Barnes without demanding a tax break, award, or beer, which made Sam think he wanted something else.

Tony picked up a bottle of SMIRNOFF® Pumpkin Spice and picked the SMIRN off the label. He put it back, grabbed the Circus Peanuts and locked himself in his new Feelings Room.

" _Sorry, Pepper, Nat, Bucky. If you ever want to lactate you'll have to do it in public like good little social reformers."_

" _Why did you include m-"_

" _Don't ask, man."_

Tony stuck his head out of the Feelings Room and said, "Jarvis, warn me if you ever become one of those evil AIs that attempts global extinction by crashing Sokovia into the Eastern Hemisphere or anything like that, m'kay?"

"Don't be silly, sir," said Jarvis. "I could have heard you perfectly well from inside the Feelings Room."

Tony went as red as his suit. He looked like he was having an argument with the voices in his head, which usually only happened when he was wearing the suit. He must have lost because he said, "Furiousa?"

Barnes raised an eyebrow, having learned to answer to Furiousa, Edward Elric, Robocop, Luke Skywalker, and gimp.

"Why aren't you going _Kill Bill_ on Hydra?"

Barnes waited for Steve or Jarvis to translate.

"Um, he wants to know why you don't wanna' get revenge," said Steve. He hesitated then added, "I was kind of wondering the same thing. I mean… Why aren't you… mad like me?"

"No one gets mad like you, Stevie," said Barnes, in a voice rusty from disuse and possibly rust (they really didn't know what Hydra had done to him.)

 _Stevie_ beamed. "You know what I mean."

Barnes was quiet for a long time (and again, it wasn't that long, but they were used to Tony), before saying, "I'm not going to let them make me anything I don't want to be. Not even mad. If I was mad, there wouldn't be room for anything else. Not like you, with your big head, Stevie."

Stevie beamed again, and Sam put on his Ray-Bans.

"I don't want to get revenge," said Barnes. "I just want to get better."

Steve wrapped Barnes in another one of those ridiculous-bicep-hugs, and Sam gave him a pat on what little was still visible of his back. Natasha was the one who turned it into a group hug. Tony didn't join in, but he did offer them some Circus Peanuts. (Thor did join in.)

That was it. Sam quit. Jarvis was a better therapist than he would ever be.

Whatever.

At least Steve didn't dickpunch Ashton Kutcher.


End file.
